ONE-VARIETY COTTON COMMUNITIES. 39 
war-time period of abnormal industrial activity. The superior qual- 
ity of the Pima cotton in the Salt River Valley and the development 
of the cooperative spirit undoubtedly assisted the community in 
avoiding more serious injury. 
MEADE COTTON COMMUNITIES. 
Meade cotton is a remarkable new variety of the Upland type that 
is being substituted in South Carolina and Georgia for the Sea Island 
type of cotton, which is being abandoned on account of the ravages 
of the boll weevil. Although the Meade plants have the general 
appearance and behavior of ordinary short-staple Upland sorts, the 
fiber has the length and quality of Sea Island cotton, with a staple of 
If inches under favorable conditions. The seeds also are like those 
of Sea Island cotton and adapted with a slight readjustment of the 
machinery to roller ginning that planters have used hitherto for the 
Sea Island crop. 
Having the cultural advantages of the Upland type, large bolls, 
prompt setting of the crop, and earlier maturity, the Meade variety 
usually yields as much as short-staple varieties and two or three times 
as much as the Sea Island cotton in the presence of the boll weevil. 
This advantage has been shown in several different experiments, with 
the two types grown side by side for purposes of comparison. The 
need of a special variety in the Southeastern States and the oppor- 
tunities of a special market are as great as or greater than with the 
Pima cotton in Arizona, but community conditions are less advanced, 
and less progress has been made in the utilization of the Meade 
cotton. 
At the beginning of the commercial cultivation of the Meade 
variety in Georgia, in 1917, the need of developing adequate seed 
supplies was recognized and efforts were made to concentrate the 
best stocks of seed in the communities that gave the best prospects 
of regular organized action for keeping the seed pure. But many 
of the farmers who grew the Meade cotton in 1918 failed to observe 
the precautions of isolation and separate ginning that had been 
agreed upon, and many stocks of seed became worthless for planting. 
Although the acreage increased rapidly and the reception of the new 
variety in the market could hardly have been better, the lack of 
sufficient quantities of pure seed or of any definitely organized basis 
of pure-seed production hampered the utilization of the variety. 
More care was taken in 1919 for isolation and separate ginning 
than in the previous year, but the advantages to be gained by com- 
munity organization and cooperation and the mutual interest of the 
farmers of a district in the production of one kind of cotton were 
not sufficiently appreciated by the growers to resist offers of high 
